Landsbergis urges people to be neither fools nor pigs

Humanity should be the foremost religion of the people, Vytautas Landsbergis, the first de facto leader of restored Lithuania and a veteran political figure, said at the “Būtent” discussion festival, according to LRT. He said that when people treat one another humanely, help, embrace and comfort each other, it becomes possible to speak of a welfare state.

“First of all, a person must not be a fool. And another thing is that he must not be a pig. Is it very complicated? Not to be a pig and not to be a fool,” Landsbergis said in a discussion with director Karolis Kaupinis.

“The main religion we should have is humanity,” he added.

The conversation began with Landsbergis recalling that he had previously described as one of his mistakes paying insufficient attention to diplomat Stasys Lozoraitis, who had spoken about the lack of a new kind of person. Landsbergis said the focus had been on the belief that freedom would bring qualitative change, while Lozoraitis had warned that there was a shortage of people capable of creating that change.

“That problem existed, has remained and has not diminished at all, because there are no more such people. Has the number of people in Lithuania increased? That is the question, as grandfather Shakespeare said. Do we have enough people? Do we want to have more people? That is the most important thing. If we do not try to make the world and Lithuania better than we found them when we arrived, we are wasting our time,” Landsbergis said.

He said that achieving national independence was not the final goal in building the state. Lithuania still needed to distance itself from its own ugliness and bad legacy while embracing its good heritage.

“Lithuania is very beautiful. Beautiful in appearance, beautiful in spirit, in its songs and thoughts. Just look around and explore it. These are enormous riches,” Landsbergis said.

He said independence could have been mistaken for an end in itself by those who had fought for and built it. Independence, he added, was only a means and a condition for people to become better and create a Lithuania that was more beautiful, just, clean, truthful, honest and free of abuse.

Speaking about swearing, Landsbergis recalled that as the Sąjūdis movement began to awaken, people in various institutions would agree to impose fines for swearing in Russian. Employees would put money into a common fund for each swear word. He said he regarded this as a sign of the growing awareness at the time.

Landsbergis said that regardless of whether the enemy was seizing land, culture or heritage, people must not give in or surrender even a patch of land or a part of their soul.

“But you give in. As soon as you say a swear word, you give in. You are in a place where you should not be. Our problem is that we do not look at ourselves and perhaps do not want to become better. We want things around us to be better, for someone to give us something and make us feel pleased. All kinds of nonsense matter much more than essential things. The essential things are who we are, where we live and why we live, and what we want from life,” he said.

Landsbergis stressed each person’s responsibility and the decision to become better, saying that Lithuania could then become better as well.

“We have heard all kinds of philosophers saying, ‘This is not the Lithuania we wanted.’ I would tell them: ‘Fine, you sat and wanted it. You sat, sat and wanted it all the time. But what did you do to make Lithuania different?’ Therefore, you have to look at yourself. At yourself above all, because Lithuania begins with you. Lithuania is you, your friends, your brothers; your nation is Lithuania,” the professor said.